Free Republic

TOKYO — A ship commander and executive officer at Sasebo Naval Base were relieved of command due to a loss of confidence, the Navy announced Friday. Cmdr. John Zuhowski was relieved Thursday of command of the USS Tortuga, an amphibious assault ship, by Rear Adm. Richard Landolt, of Commander Task Force 76, according to a news release. Lt. Cmdr. Dennis Burke, the ship’s executive officer, was also relieved, the statement said. Both Zuhowski and Burke remain on active duty and face no loss of rank or punishment, according to Lt. Denver Applehans, spokesman for the task force. Applehans said he...

NEW ORLEANS (NNS) -- The amphibious dock landing ship USS Tortuga (LSD 46), homeported in Little Creek, Va., continues to support Hurricane Katrina humanitarian assistance efforts here, including U.S. Army personnel. Tortuga is providing logistical support to the Army in addition to conducting its own search and rescue missions and providing housing for more than 170 displaced residents from the New Orleans area. The Army’s 307th Engineer Battalion of the 82nd Airborne Division from Fort Bragg, N.C., has established its Tactical Operations Center (TOC) near Tortuga’s pier at Naval Support Activity (NSA) New Orleans. “We wanted to be close to...

NEW ORLEANS -- From the bridge of the 844-foot-long USS Iwo Jima, a panoramic view of New Orleans provides few clues to the destruction that Hurricane Katrina left in her wake. But Rear Adm. Reubin Bookert, commander of Amphibious Group II and the Iwo Jima, knows better. "We've got a lot of work to do. Totally devastated situation. My first reaction was shock," Bookert said Thursday of his initial thought of the scene when he arrived in New Orleans earlier in the week. The multipurpose amphibious assault ship spent its third day in New Orleans on Thursday docked behind the...

24th MEU coming home to Lejeune CAMP PATRIOT, KUWAIT - Marines returning from Iraq washed their vehicles and cleaned their weapons Friday as they prepared to return home, the first U.S. ground unit ordered to ship out from the Persian Gulf. Servicemen and women of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit are to set sail for Camp Lejeune in North Carolina in about a week, said spokesman Capt. Dan McSweeney. The trip on board USS Nassau, USS Austin and USS Tortuga will take about a month. "They kind of took care of us because we have been out for so long,"...

NORFOLK, Va. (NNS) -- The commanding officer of the Little Creek-based dock landing ship USS Tortuga (LSD 46), Cmdr. Brian Shanahan, and the ship's executive officer Lt. Cmdr. Byron Tracy, were relieved of duty June 19 by Commander, Amphibious Group 2, Rear Adm. Kevin Moran. Based on the preliminary results of an ongoing official investigation, Moran relieved the two officers for the grounding of the ship off the North Carolina coast near Morehead City the night of June 6. The grounding occurred about 1,000 yards off the coast. No one was injured, nor does the ship require any repairs. At...